gjphw@ihlpf.UUCP (03/05/87)
I have the opportunity to purchase an Atari 20 Mbyte hard disk for our
1040ST. The drive appears to be in good condition though it comes used and
without documentation (the manual may not be very informative anyway). I am
seeking comments from people who have experience or hearsay knowledge about
this drive.
How reliable is this drive? What problems are likely to occur? Can most
crashes be accommodated by the spare capacity on the disk? If it requires
repair, what is likely to fail and how much does it cost to get it fixed?
Does the drive come in decorator colors?
A more general question concerns the relative merits of having a hard disk
drive versus using a large RAM disk for program development. While a hard
disk appears to be in vogue, wouldn't a large RAM disk in memory serve even
better for quiet and fast temporary storage?
Thank you for mailing your comments.
Patrick Wyant
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Naperville, IL
*!ihnp4!ihlpf!gjphwleavens@atari.UUCP (Alex Leavens) (03/06/87)
> I have the opportunity to purchase an Atari 20 Mbyte hard disk for our > 1040ST. The drive appears to be in good condition though it comes used and > Hard > disk appears to be in vogue, wouldn't a large RAM disk in memory serve even > better for quiet and fast temporary storage? > Developing off a ram disc is (IMHO) nice, but asking for trouble. What happens if the program you're developing crashes the machine? Your source code is history. what happens if you get a power surge or a blackout? History. I much prefer a hard disc. I've had an Atari 20 meg hard disc for 1 1/2 years now, and it runs very reliably. Be sure to get rev. 8 of the hard disc software if you get the drive. --alex @ Atari BIX: alexl. GEnie: ALEXLEAVENS AtariCorp: 408-745-2006
paone@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Phil Paone) (03/08/87)
I bought one of those drives in January and I have still not had a problem. I am well over the 40 folder limit (around 100), but I know that I am playing russian roulette. I seems to go slower the more full it gets. I guess I should have made the partitions smaller. Also, the drive comes without an essential program, a backup utility. I just got one from Start, but it only does full backups, which is a terrible waste considering that my drive is only at half capacity. I found no problem with the documentation. It even went into the signals and data formats used in the data transfer. All the support programs were clearly documented and a list of do's and don'ts was included. -- Phil Paone paone@topaz.rutgers.edu "Admiral...There be whales here"